If I no more am gracious in thy sight,
Be just, O Jove, and do thy daughter right.
In vain I sought her the wide world around,
And when I most despair’d to find her, found.
But how can I the fatal finding boast,
By which I know she is for ever lost?
Without her father’s aid, what other power
Can to my arms the lovely maid restore?
Let him restore her, I’ll the crime forgive;
My child, dishonour’d, I’d with joy receive.
Pity your daughter with a thief should wed,
Though mine, you think, deserves no better bed.”
Jove thus replies: “It equally belongs
To both to guard our common pledge from wrongs:
But if to things we proper names apply,
This hardly can be call’d an injury:
The theft is love; nor need we blush to own
The thief, if I can judge, to be our son;
Had you of his desert no other proof,
To be Jove’s brother is, methinks, enough:
Nor was my throne by worth superior got;
Heaven fell to me, as hell to him, by lot:
If you are still resolved her loss to mourn,
And nothing less will serve than her return,
Upon these terms she may again be yours
(The irrevocable terms of fate, not ours);
Of Stygian food if she did never taste,
Hell’s bounds may then, and only then, be pass’d.”
Transformation of Ascalaphus Into an Owl
When Ceres has obtained from Jupiter her daughter’s freedom and return to earth, provided she has eaten nothing in the kingdom of Pluto, the goddess hastens to the infernal regions, and finds that Proserpine has already partaken of the fruit of the pomegranate-tree by the testimony of Ascalaphus, whose loquacity is punished by his transformation into an owl.
The goddess now, resolving to succeed,
Down to the gloomy shades descends with speed;
But adverse fate had otherwise decreed;
For, long before, her giddy, thoughtless child
Had broke her fast, and all her projects spoil’d.
As in the garden’s shady walk she stray’d,
A fair pomegranate charm’d the simple maid,
Hung in her way, and tempting her to taste,
She pluck’d the fruit, and took a short repast.
Seven times, a seed at once, she eat the food:
The fact Ascalaphus had only view’d,
Whom Acheron begot, in Stygian shades,
On Orphne, famed among Avernal maids;
He saw what pass’d, and, by discovering all,
Detain’d the ravish’d nymph in cruel thrall.
But now a queen, she with resentment heard,
And changed the vile informer to a bird.
In Phlegethon’s black stream her hand she dips,
Sprinkles his head, and wets his babbling lips.
Soon on his face, bedropp’d with magic dew,
A change appear’d, and gaudy feathers grew;
A crooked beak the place of nose supplies;
Rounder his head, and larger are his eyes;
His arms and body waste, but are supplied
With yellow pinions, flagging on each side;
His nails grow crooked, and are turn’d to claws,
And lazily along his heavy wings he draws:
Ill-omen’d in his form, the unlucky fowl,
Abhorr’d by men, and call’d a screeching owl.
Daughters of Achelous Transformed Into Sirens
The Sirens, daughters of Achelous and the Muse Melpomene, disconsolate at the abduction of Proserpine, entreat the gods to afford them wings, that they may seek her by sea as well as by land—Jupiter, to appease the resentment of Ceres and sooth her grief, decrees that Proserpine shall remain six months in each year with her husband, and the remainder with her mother on earth.
“Justly this punishment was due to him,
And less had been too little for his crime;
But, O ye nymphs! that from the flood descend,
What fault of yours the gods could so offend,
With wings and claws your beauteous forms to spoil,
Yet save your maiden face and winning smile?
Were you not with her in Pergusa’s bowers,
When Proserpine went forth to gather flowers?
Since Pluto in his car the goddess caught,
Have you not for her in each climate sought?
And when on land you long had search’d in vain,
You wish’d for wings to cross the pathless main:
The earth and sea might witness to your care:
The gods were easy, and return’d your prayer:
With golden wing o’er foamy waves you fled,
And to the sun your plumy glories spread.
But lest the soft enchantment of your songs,
And the sweet music of your flatt’ring tongues,
Should quite be lost (as courteous fates ordain),
Your voice and virgin beauty still remain.”
Jove, some amends for Ceres’ loss to make,
Yet unwilling Pluto should the joy partake,
Gives them of Proserpine an equal share,
Who, claim’d by both, with both divides the year.
The goddess now in either empire sways,
Six moons in hell, and six with Ceres stays:
Her peevish temper’s changed; that sullen mind
Which made ev’n hell uneasy, now is kind;
Her voice refines; her mien more sweet appears;
Her forehead free from frowns, her eyes from tears.
As when, with golden light, the conqu’ring day
Through dusky exhalations clears a way;
Ceres her daughter’s loss no longer mourn’d,
But back to Arethusa’s spring return’d;
And, sitting on the margin, bid her tell
From whence she came, and why a sacred well.
Story of Arethusa
The god Alpheus, becoming enamoured of Arethusa, a follower of Diana, pursues her for a considerable distance, when the nymph, ready to sink under fatigue, implores the aid of her protectress, who changes her into a fountain, with whose streams the river Alpheus mingles.
Still were the purling waters, and the maid
From the smooth surface raised her beauteous head,
Wipes off the drops that from her tresses ran,
And thus to tell Alpheus’ loves began.
“In Elis first I breathed the living air;
The chase was all my pleasure, all my care:
None loved like me the forest to explore,
To pitch the toils, and drive the bristled boar.
Of fair, though masculine, I had the name,
But gladly would to that have quitted claim:
It less my pride than indignation raised,
To hear the beauty I neglected praised;
Such compliments I loathed, such charms as these
I scorn’d, and thought it infamy to please.
“Once, I remember, in the summer’s heat,
Tired with the chase, I sought a cool retreat,
And walking on, a silent current found,
Which gently glided o’er the gravelly ground;
The crystal water was so smooth, so clear,
My eye distinguish’d every pebble there;
So soft its motion, that I scarce perceived
The running stream, or what I saw believed:
The hoary willow and the poplar made,
Along the
